ORLANDO - Malik "King" Scott (38-2-1, 13 KOs) won a heavyweight showdown with Tony "The Tiger" Thompson (40-6, 27 KOs) on Premier Boxing Champions: The Next Round on Bounce TV Friday night from The Venue at UCF in Orlando.

 

Scott controlled most of the action thoughout the 10-round battle using his superior movement to control the pace of the fight. As he has throughout his career, Thompson refused to give in and scored a big knockdown with a thundering right hand in round nine.

 

The fight would end up going the distance, with all three judges giving the bout to Scott by scores of 98-91, 96-93 and 95-94.

After the fight, Scott was praised by close friend, WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, who watched the fight from ringside. Wilder knocked Scott out in the first round last year.

 

The action continued with the power-punching Sergey Lipinets (8-0, 6 KOs) taking down previously unbeaten Lydell Rhodes (23-1-1, 11 KOs) in a 10-round showdown of unbeaten super lightweights.

 

Lipinets stalked the athletic-Rhodes early on and wore him down before dominating and nearly-stopping him in the later rounds. Lipinets landed 79 power punches out of 122 landed and his 79 power punches matched Rhodes 79 total punches landed. The final judges tallies were 96-93 and 98-91 twice, all in favor of LIpinets.

 

The opening televised bout featured a pair of undefeated prospects and saw Samuel "El Macho" Figueroa (10-0, 4 KOs) win a unanimous decision over Javontae Starks (13-1, 7 KOs) in an eight-round welterweight fight.

 

Figueroa was able to break through the defenses of the much taller Starks and use his awkward southpaw style score with big right hands. "El Macho" out-landed Starks by a total of 132-113 and was rewarded by the judges with scores of 78-74 and 77-75 twice in his favor.

 

Additional undercard action saw a rising super lightweight star in Gervonta "Tank" Davis (13-0, 12 KOs), with promoter Floyd "Money" Mayweather watching ringside, stop former world champion Cristobal Cruz (40-19-4, 24 KOs) in the third round.

 

Davis sent Cruz to the canvas in round one with a straight left-right hook combo and followed that up with an uppercut that put Cruz down again and caused the referee to stop the fight 1:31 into round three.